PERCEPTIONS JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS September - November 1998 Volume III - Number 3 THE ‘OUTER WALL’ OF SANCTIONS AND THE KOSOVO ISSUE ENVER HASANI Enver Hasani is a Research Assistant at the International Relations Department at Bilkent University, Ankara. INTRODUCTION In the US State Department ‘USIA (United States Information Agency) Wireless File’, issued on 23 November 1995, it was made public, for the first time, the ‘outer wall’ of sanctions concept.1 It contained the following message: “A resolution will be introduced in the UN Security Council to lift the arms embargo against all of the states of former Yugoslavia. Trade sanctions against Serbia will be suspended, but may be re-imposed if Serbia or any other Serb authorities fail significantly to meet their obligations under the Peace Agreement. An ‘outer wall’ of sanctions will remain in place until Serbia addresses a number of other areas of concern, including Kosovo and cooperation with the War Crimes Tribunal.” The above message meant that after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, Slobodan Milosevic was being recognised as a new peacemaker to end the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Accordingly, the UN Security Council first suspended and later totally lifted trade and other sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY - Serbia and Montenegro) as described above. It did so in resolutions Nos. 1022 (22 November 1995) and 1047 (1 October 1996).2 Taking into account this sequence of events, it might have been a proper heading of our paper if restated differently so as to cover all issues included within the ‘outer wall’ of sanctions concept. Namely, basics were laid down right at the beginning of the crisis in former Yugoslavia and thus apply equally to the other former Yugoslavia republics, now internationally sovereign and independent states. Unlike these, FRY represents the most extreme case of an entity not acting in accordance with the internationally accepted standards of behaviour as foreseen in international documents to be discussed in the following paragraphs. Consequently, a heading of the paper